


Strawberry Panic ~ The Gravity of Love

by ninemil



Category: Strawberry Panic!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Continuation, Drama, Epic, F/F, F/M, Gen, Post-Anime, Romance, Yuri
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-08-24
Updated: 2007-08-24
Packaged: 2018-03-19 01:41:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3591591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninemil/pseuds/ninemil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A 250 page fan fiction that continues from where the anime left off: Shizuma faces up to the mess she's left in her wake, Nagisa and Tamao struggle to rediscover their friendship and Hikari and Amane learn the hard way that Etoile isn't all hero worship. Strong adult themes.</p>
<p>Rated: T</p>
<p>Chapters: 18</p>
<p>Words: 165,969</p>
<p>Disclaimer: Strawberry Panic was conceptualized by Sakurako Kimino, with light novel and manga rights held by MediaWorks/Seven Seas, and anime rights held by MadHouse Entertainment/Media Blasters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strawberry Panic ~ The Gravity of Love

This preview is an extract from an on-going publication that can be found [here](http://www.ninemil.com/fanfiction.php4), or on FanFiction.net, [here](http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3742138/1/Strawberry-Panic-The-Gravity-of-Love).

Author meta, accompanying artwork, and more can be accessed at our studio facebook page:

[ ](http://www.facebook.com/studio9s)

* * *

_Winter Term, Prologue_

 

 

 

**“Did you know?”**

 

In the din of the clearing cathedral, over the noise of the chattering girls and the soft murmurs of the Saintly Chorus ushering them home, you could be forgiven for presuming the question had gone unheard. But glazed eyes staring at the open doorway by which the assembly was leaving, the door by which _she_ had left only hours before, Miyuki Rokujō stood in complete and total absence.

“President Rokujō?”

The sixth year snapped back to the world, and turning to face the voice she found herself before her student council assistants, Mizuho Kanou and Hitomi Tougi. The reception was untypically cold; Hitomi’s arms were crossed with her stature tall and formal, her slate-gray eyes practically dripping with accusation. Mizuho hovered only a few paces behind, her own expression an icy mirror beneath her long, dusky shroud of hair.

“Did you know?” Hitomi repeated.

“Did I know what, Tougi-san?” Miyuki replied with a frown, unaccustomed to the short tone. From one so close, it caught her off guard, and for a second, she was back in that shadowy hallway from many years before, crying, and curled up against the wall alone. Brushing back her dark bob defensively, Miyuki turned from Hitomi’s openly hostile gaze.

“That Shizuma still had feelings for her,” Mizuho cut in, her continuation just as frosty, “for Aoi-san?”

Miyuki sighed. She’d spent the past hour so pre-occupied with the afternoon’s events, that she hadn’t considered their implications. The remainder of the presentation had been and gone, and she’d spent the entire time in personal turmoil. She shifted stance, and gathered herself before replying.

“I wasn’t entirely convinced by her sudden composure of late, no,” she said, and she turned back to look the pair in the eye as the very person they were discussing had once taught her to. “It seemed like she was hiding something.” Coolly, Miyuki gestured toward the stone altar at the back of the hall as she finished. “Evidently, she was.”

“So you knew, and still President Rokujō entered Suzumi-san and Aoi-san, together?”

“I thought I was doing them a favour,” Miyuki snapped, all at once flustered by the continuing interrogation. Inwardly she questioned the favour’s recipient, but opted to keep the addition private. “I thought the distraction would do them good.”

Evasive replies for naught, all three knew where this was going, regardless.

“By what, burying the former-Étoile’s feelings?” Hitomi rolled her eyes. “Under what? Duty to Miator?” The auburn-haired senior shook her head in disgust, her scruffy fringe obscuring her gaze as she removed it to the floor.

“Don’t you think she’s suffered enough duty already?” Mizuho echoed, her tone distant, and her attention lost amongst the train of underclassmen shuffling along the aisle beside her, the younger girls somehow oblivious to the argument and happily recounting the day’s spectacle.

“I didn’t think it would end this way,” Miyuki offered. “I didn’t mean to hurt either of them, especially not Aoi-san, not again. She went through enough learning of Kaori…”

For a moment the trio stood in silence, each deep in their own thoughts and far removed from the conversation. Eventually, it was the Tougi girl who chose to fill the vacuum.

“Then for Rokujō-san’s sake,” she began, her words chosen carefully to reflect the dark thoughts that spawned them, “I do hope the former-Étoile is in a forgiving mood.”

The statement bounced from the stonework, its tone ominous and telling.

 

* ♥ *

 

A gentle breeze carried cold air from the Dormitory attic’s open skylight, drawing goose bumps to Shizuma’s exposed shoulders. The peaceful form of her sleeping fourth-year companion warmed the rest of her body, a poorly-fitting blanket draped across the pair of them for shelter. Shizuma sat with her back against one of the attic’s many boxes, the former-Étoile propped up by a pile of dust sheets and several battered cushions salvaged from a stack of chairs in the corner of the room. Nagisa lay curled up upon her, her cheek resting on the older girl’s bosom, head listing sleepily into the curve of her girlfriend’s slender shoulder. Long silver hair fell loose about them, the shining cascade covering Shizuma’s face, whilst the limp fingers of Nagisa’s right hand still hung entwined in its flowing strands from when she’d been playing with it as she’d fallen asleep. Aside from the soft rhythm of Nagisa’s breathing, the attic had long since fallen still.

Shizuma glanced down at the blissful form beneath her, a content smile on Nagisa’s lips, her fine brown eyelashes framing restful eyes. The former-Étoile smiled fondly, Shizuma basking in the sense of serenity that had followed their reunion. Despite the gruelling weeks leading up to this, despite the heartache and the confusion, everything seemed so right now. Finally, it was right.

Looking up at the circular skylight above them, Shizuma could see the pale disc of the moon hiding behind the growing clouds, its chill shades stark against the night sky framing them. As she gazed thoughtfully, a vivid image of Kaori’s pretty face sprung to mind, the mental spectre staring down at the young couple huddled amongst the makeshift den beneath her. To Shizuma’s surprise, rather than the sad, solemn expression they usually bore, Kaori’s soft brown eyes carried behind them a happy smile, the same fond regard that Shizuma had shown for Nagisa only seconds before. A smile of absolution.

Shizuma glanced back to the sleeping form she cradled so lovingly, thumbing wayward strands from the fourth year’s restful brow. The closing word of Kaori’s final letter repeated in her mind, and looking back up at the empty sky light, Shizuma whispered quietly toward the heavens, “Thank you, my love. Thank you.”

 

* ♥ *

 

A sharp rap on the wooden door shook Tamao to focus, drawing her eyes across the dark dormitory expanse toward the shadowy portal behind her. Panicked, she wiped her eyes with the bed cover and sniffed back further unshed tears, the fourth year willing her breathing back toward normal. After a long pause, she called tentatively, “Who… who is it?”

The soft voice of Lulim’s student council president, Chikaru Minamoto, replied in return, “May I come in, Tamao-chan?” she asked.

Tamao started again, blindly attempting to straighten the bed as she stumbled over her discarded Étoile dress in the darkness. She brushed down her uniform as best she could, before groping for the light switch and flicking it on as quietly as possible. With a final breath and a short pause before continuing, she cracked the door ajar.

“Um, can I… can I help you, Minamoto-sama?” she whispered.

Chikaru peered back through the gap, her delicate features framed by the antiquated woodwork.

“I came to see if Tamao-chan was okay,” she replied.

The lump returned to Tamao’s throat, and with effort she choked back a further wave of tears. Manners having instinctively taken control, she stumbled over her words as she opened the door more properly for her guest.

“Of course I am, Chikaru-senpai,” she bluffed poorly, “Who wouldn’t be after such a splendid ceremony?” She lowered her red-tinged eyes from Chikaru’s prying gaze, continuing the poorly engaged act as she did. “Didn’t Hikari-san look just beautiful in her dress?”

Chikaru’s faced remained shrewdly unconvinced, and with her tone soft, she replied in a quiet but gathered manner, “Yes, didn’t she just, Tamao-chan.”

The older girl followed Tamao’s sweeping invite, and as she crossed the room to the waiting table that Chiyo had much earlier set for tea, she regarded the sky blue ball gown lying crumpled on the floor, tear stains still spattered across its front. Chikaru bent to retrieve it, smoothing the fabric down before folding it neatly before her.

“You shouldn’t be so careless with such a delicate dress, Tamao-chan,” she smiled, wistfully. “You’ll only ruin it.”

Tamao’s shoulders slumped subconsciously as she put the door to, the failed Étoile-entrée glancing back across the room toward the empathetic senior standing in the space behind her. Tamao’s mask cracked further still, the glimpse further betraying the turmulent soul twisting beneath.

“I imagine I shan’t have another opportunity to wear it,” she muttered quietly.

The pain was obvious in her voice now, and sighing softly, Chikaru offered in reply, “Now now, Tamao-chan, don’t be so silly. Someone as beautiful as Astraea’s great poet will always have cause to own a pretty dress.”

Tamao looked down at the floor again, hoping her long hair would hide the gathering tears that stabbed at her sinuses. Draping the dress across the back of Tamao’s desk chair, Chikaru moved swiftly to attend the crumbling figure before her.

“Tamao-chan...” she sighed, as she gathered the younger girl into a motherly embrace. In a moment of patient calm while she waited for the inevitable, Chikaru pressed paternal lips to the fourth year’s lowered crown. It was at this that Tamao finally broke, a wail of dismay testament to the freshly streaming tears and heaving sobs that followed soon after.

“Nagisa-chan…” she called under breath.

Heavy silence echoed the fourth year’s mumbled anguish, and Chikaru led them awkwardly across the room so she could perch Tamao on the dormitory bed behind, sparkling tears now speckled across the front of her checked Lulim uniform.

“Nagisa-chan…” the fourth year repeated again, her words now painfully unguarded and plain. “My Nagisa-chan…”

 

* ♥ *

 

“Yaya-chan?”

Hikari Konohana pressed her slight form against their third-year dormitory door, turning the handle as quietly as she possibly could, hoping dearly to avoid the customary creak of birch-wood under strain, else it wake the rest of their sleeping corridor.

“Yaya-chan?” she whispered again, expecting anytime soon a surprise jolt as her roommate loomed from the darkness. But no reply answered her call.

Peering into the void behind the wooden portal, the pretty Étoile Cadette strained to make out the dormitory beds, Yaya’s cluttered desk, and the flowing white curtains behind. Despite the late hour, both beds still appeared to be empty, and the window remained ajar.

“Yaya-chan?” she repeated in confusion, her call now pushing its middle-of-the-night restraint. Yet still no reply offered to answer it.

Flicking the light switch on, Hikari squinted in the brightness, her sea blue eyes protesting as they adjusted to the sudden glare. She glanced quizzically at the scene surrounding her. Yaya’s white Spica uniform lay strewn across her bed, the sheets an untidy mess of imprints and scuffed covers, while her favourite blue night clothes still peeked out from beneath her bedraggled looking pillow.

The tiny blonde tipped the door quietly to, doing her best not to catch the edge of her Étoile grown as she did so. Stepping further into the empty room, a strange smell caught Hikari’s nose – perfume, deliciously sweet and unfamiliar, still strong despite being only a linger from earlier that afternoon.

Puzzled, the young Étoile stood with her hands crossed before her, surveying her confusing locale.

“Yaya-chan,” she blurted to herself, “where are you?”

 

* ♥ *

 

Shizuma shivered in the cold air. The temperature was dropping, and she knew it was time to move the pair of them before someone caught cold. Ever so gently, the slender sixth year bent her lips to her sleeping girlfriend’s temple, Shizuma planting an extended but tender kiss upon Nagisa’s cheek. Reddish brown locks shuffled as the Aoi girl stirred, her fine auburn eyelashes cracking apart in response, her soft brown eyes soon peering up from behind them.

“Shizuma-sama?” the sleepy red-head mumbled.

The fond smile returned to Shizuma’s porcelain lips. “Nagisa,” she breathed.

The fourth year shuffled in her warm cocoon, pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders as she released Shizuma’s tangled hair from her fingers. Closing her eyes with a playful grin, Nagisa feigned an immediate return to sleep.

“I must be dreaming,” she mumbled contently, shuffling in her cosy paradise. The corner of Shizuma’s lips curled further in reply.

“No, if you were dreaming, it would be of patisserie, my love, not of me.”

Nagisa opened one eye, grinning back at the former-Étoile. “Mmm, cookies,” she teased.

Shizuma’s silver-river of hair rippled in mock dismay, the elegant sixth-year shaking her head in response. “Yes dear, cookies,” she agreed. She traced lazy fingers across the soft curve of Nagisa’s cheek. “We should get up, Nagisa,” she said, “It’s getting cold, and the snow has started again.”

Nagisa rolled onto her back, looking up at the starry void above them through the wooden skylight. It was beginning to clog around the rim with a fluffy white lining.

“Look - marshmallows too! I _am_ dreaming.”

Shizuma’s emerald eyes sparkled with playful rejection.

“Why so obsessive my love? I’ll develop an inferiority complex if I lose you to candy.”

Nagisa’s voice ramped pitch as she replied, “But Shizuma-sama has left me so drained after today’s awful ordeal...”

She’d meant it as a tease, but a serious look crossed Shizuma’s careworn face, stifling the happy shine in her eyes.

“Yes, she has…”

And after a pause, she added, “And she’s deeply sorry.”

Nagisa sat up, the tone shaking off the evening’s sleepy haze. She tilted her head, looking directly into Shizuma’s troubled eyes.

“Shizuma-sama?”

A mark of regret washed across the older girl’s face, and she pressed a finger to Nagisa’s lips.

“It wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” she began.

For a second, Nagisa looked worried.

“When I met you Nagisa,” and Shizuma’s silver hair fell forward as the former-Étoile dipped her gaze from her girlfriend’s eyes, “I missed her …I missed Kaori so, so much.”

With a gentle touch, she traced the line of Nagisa’s bare shoulder as her point of focus dissolved into a vague blur of pale skin and coarse blanket.

“I’d spent so long waiting for that pain to end, I hadn’t thought about what _I_ needed to do to make it happen.”

A tear pooled in each of her yawning emerald wells, Nagisa watching quietly as they did.

“It wasn’t until I took you to the summer house, until that night in Kaori’s room, that I realised I still had to deal with my pain - that I needed to put things behind me before I could move on.” The tears rolled free, racing across Shizuma’s cheek and down toward her chin, meeting there in unison.

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” she continued. “Even then, I was certain I loved you, Nagisa.”

The red head wiped the tears away attentively, her own troubled expression calling for Shizuma to stop, the look in the young girl’s eyes stressing to the older that an explanation was unnecessary. But the former-Étoile seemed intent, continuing on despite more tears and a flustered warmth spreading across her skin.

“The day I returned our Étoile necklaces, Nagisa, Miyuki and I …we found a letter from Kaori. It’d been hidden in the necklace case where Kaori thought only I would find it.”

Shizuma sobbed openly now, adding with obvious difficultly, “She wrote it not long before she died.”

Nagisa’s expression turned to one of agonised pity, the youngster wishing for a way to end her girlfriend’s obvious distress. But just as before, she focused on listening intently; Shizuma obviously needed to say these words, or she wouldn’t have embarked on sharing them in the first place.

“In it she asked what would become of me after she had gone. She said she hoped for me to stay as she’d met me - as the girl that made her happy and helped her feel alive. It was only then that I realised what I’d become, what I was doing to the people around me…”

The tears finally slowed, and a look of sincerity took to Shizuma’s intent face. She stared directly into the brown eyes regarding her, holding their attention firmly.

“I loved you so much, Nagisa,” she stressed, “even then. I just needed time.”

Crippled by returning confusion and an act that had thoroughly devastated her, the red head immediately drew away, choking back her own rising tears as the recent weeks’ events sprung back to mind. Struggling to control her nerve, she pushed an ever present question from her lips.

“But… that night in the greenhouse. The night you took the Summer House key back. You said…”

A scowl crossed Shizuma’s face, twisting her lips into a sneer as she looked away once more. She straightened her back in obvious anger and annoyance.

“Miyuki,” she spat the word out, “had a convincing way with words.”

“But she said you’d given your approval to our entry in the Étoile election!” Nagisa exclaimed, recoiling almost completely, anguish racing through her heart. The evening had been so perfect, and yet suddenly it seemed to be going wrong. “You said so yourself –“

“No!” Shizuma snapped, returning her focus to Nagisa’s contesting eyes. “I gave approval for her to choose, Nagisa. I didn’t care who became the next Étoile, as long as it set me free.”

She leant forward, taking the fourth year’s hands in hers, drawing the red head back towards her.

“It wasn’t my choice to enter you both; it wasn’t until after she’d told Tamao that Miyuki informed me of her decision.” Holding Nagisa’s hands firmly, she forced the fourth year to look at her. “I only said what I did that night because I thought I wasn’t ready. I was stupid. I didn’t want to hurt you any more than I already had, but instead I only made things worse.”

The girls fell silent for a moment, their breathing slowing gradually.

Catching memories as they sprang to mind, a weary smile crossed Shizuma’s delicate lips.

“I smashed my room up the morning she told me you were entering together.”

She looked away, caught up in her own thoughts, the silver river that shrouded her face shifting in the light. Her words were little more than whispers as she continued the afterthought, “I was so angry, so scared I’d lost you altogether.”

Absorbing the air of regret, Nagisa carefully traced the scar line on Shizuma’s left hand, its source now explained, the wound still obvious and raw. Her furrowed brow quickly softened, her gaze lost in the myriad lines that raced alongside the tender mark.

Shizuma continued, returning her eyes to the beautiful girl she held before her.

“I just needed time to gather myself, Nagisa. After facing it all again, I just needed to figure myself out… I’m sorry I took so long, my love.”

The fourth year looked up at Shizuma, exploring her pretty face, rereading the open expression. For only the second time since she’d met the former-Étoile, Nagisa saw the senior blush; the previous time being that very morning in the cathedral grounds. Reassured, and with the beginnings of a smile creeping to her lips, Nagisa replied in the quietist of whispers.

“It doesn’t matter how we got here, Shizuma.”

She leant forward slowly, drawing her mouth to the older girl’s lips. The coy flush of playful embarrassment she’d worn shifting into a look of placid serenity, before being twisted by slowly building desire. She parted her lips again, this time brushing Shizuma’s cheek.

“I’m here, with you now. That’s all that matters.”

And Nagisa’s whisper trailed off, her final words consumed by a long, lingering kiss.

 

* ♥ *

 

The stairs creaked as the two girls closed the attic door and tip-toed out into the Dormitory corridor. The dull light of the moon spilled through partially obscured windows, leaving the way before them broken by sporadic lines of elongated shadow.

“What now?” Nagisa asked timidly, the fourth year peering back toward her girlfriend.

Shizuma flashed a theatric smile in return.

“What makes you think I have an answer for that yet?”

Nagisa giggled, squeezing the other girl’s hand as she did.

“Because you’re the brainy one, remember?”

Shizuma grinned back, and after a moment’s thought, replied more seriously.

“Then it’s time you returned to your room, Nagisa. You have a friend there I’m sure is in need of a hug.”

The fourth year tilted her head as she reconciled Shizuma’s directive.

“Tamao-chan?”

“I could only wish for a friend like her, Nagisa. Regardless of our relationship, you shouldn’t lose that. You mustn’t lose that.”

Nagisa bowed her head for a moment, consequence and concern catching up to her.

“But…” she began, her voice small and questioning, “I…”

She looped the subject briefly, Shizuma undoubtedly in the right, and Nagisa simply trying to avoid the matter. Just as she was about to vocalise an admittance as much, another, just as troubling possibility sprung to mind.

“You won’t…?”

Shizuma pre-empted her words and cut her off outright.

“What, after today? After this evening? No, of course not, don’t be silly.”

Nagisa beamed.

“Then yes, I have a friend I know will need a hug.”

Happy with her partner’s choice, Shizuma returned the smiles with a brief nod of resolve, before glancing down the hall into the plunging darkness ahead.

“And I,” she muttered, “…I have something to deal with myself.”

The words floated into the hall, not needing a reply. Nagisa knew what portent they carried.

 

* ♥ *

 

It was late when Chikaru left Tamao to herself. A half empty teapot of cold red tea sat in the middle of the low table at the centre of the room, and Tamao gazed at it as she stood with her back to the door; the fourth year remaining where she’d been ever since bidding Chikaru farewell and closing it behind her.

It was quiet, and cold. How long had she been there now?

A shiver ran along Tamao’s spine, and with a defeated sigh she considered the prospect of going to bed.

In reply to her sigh, the swish of fabric against wood came from the other side of the door.

Tamao looked up, at first puzzled, but then with solemn realization. This late at night there was only one potential candidate for her previously silent companion.

A moment passed, and then, with slow refrain, she managed the words, “Welcome back, Nagisa-chan.”

And as she leant forward, away from the door, the handle slowly turned.

“Tamao-chan…”

The voice was quiet, steeped in nervous trepidation.

For a second, the girls regarded each other in stoic silence through the open doorway. Nagisa’s Étoile dress hung about her, creased and dishevelled from the evening’s previous activities. Her hair fell messily across her shoulders, the flushed look in her cheeks betraying fresh tears and the evening’s other emotions.

Tamao looked a mirror, Chikaru’s soft perfume radiating from her clothes.

“I – “Nagisa started.

“Hush, Nagisa-chan.” Tamao smiled wearily as a gentle sob shook her young body.

Nagisa stepped forward, but Tamao shook her head momentarily, her hand up to push the other fourth year away. But then, with an air of finality, she chose to let the tears go and embraced her dear friend closely.

The girls stood in the dark, holding one another, unspoken regret and apology passing between them. It didn’t need saying; each knew the other’s words.

“Welcome back, Nagisa-chan, welcome back…”

 

* ♥ *

 

Shizuma pushed away from the wall, slipping from the open doorway to the younger girls’ room. Regretful, but satisfied, her attention turned to the next problem at hand, and again, a dripping sneer of disdain crossed her lips.

 With a purposeful stride, the former-Étoile of Astraea Hill headed back toward her own dormitory corridor, and a long overdue confrontation with student council president Miyuki Rokujō.


End file.
